1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multimode radio device that can be used in a radio system having a plurality of different communication modes, and particularly to an incoming call notification method and device in a multimode radio device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, multimode radio devices have been developed as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 284464/94, Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 298339/95, and Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 266592/97, in which transmitter/receivers of several different radio systems are combined in one radio device and in which the mode of one of these communication systems can be selected and used as appropriate.
Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 111680/95 discloses one example of a multimode radio unit that can distinguish the communication mode that is in use.
This radio unit is proposed with the object of enabling a user to identify the communication mode at the time of call origination, and as shown in FIG. 6, is made up of: cellular telephone radio unit 201 that modulates and demodulates radio signals of a cellular telephone; cordless telephone radio unit 202 that modulates and demodulates radio signals of a cordless telephone; microphone 203 for receiving speech; speaker 204 for outputting speech; speech processor 205 that is connected to the above-described cellular telephone radio unit 201, cordless telephone radio unit 202, microphone 203, and speaker 204, for processing each of the speech signals; operation panel 206 for receiving operation commands from the outside; display 207 for displaying the operating state; cellular mode keypad depressing sound generator 208a for use with the cellular telephone and cordless mode keypad depressing sound generator 208b for use with the cordless telephone, each for generating differing sounds each time a key is depressed depending on the mode in use for dial signals received from operation panel 206; mode detector 210 for detecting the mode in current use; and controller 209 for overall control of the unit.
In the multimode portable radio unit having the above-described construction, the keypad depressing sound that is generated when calling differs depending on the communication mode that is being used and thus notifies the user of the communication mode that is currently in use.
In the multimode mobile radio unit of the above-described prior art, however, there is the problem that when an incoming call is detected, a call incoming tone is outputted or a vibrator activated in accordance with the one preset means, regardless of the radio system by which the radio signals were transmitted, and a user is therefore unable to identify which mobile radio system produced the radio signals of the detected incoming call.
The device described in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 111680/95 notifies the user of the communication mode that was used when calling, but does not notify at call incoming which mobile radio system produced the radio signals of the incoming call.
Knowing which radio communication system produced the radio signals upon call incoming, however, is necessary for inferring a caller""s identity or for judging what action to take when responding, for example, whether to stop or continue moving if the call originated from a mobile radio device.
In view of the above-described problems of the prior art, it is an object of the present invention to provide a multimode radio device call incoming notification method and call incoming notifying device that can identify which type of radio system radio signals an incoming call belongs to upon call incoming in a multimode radio device.
To realize the above-described object, the call incoming notification method of the multimode radio device of this invention: sets in advance a different call incoming notification method for each of a set plurality of communication modes, detects an incoming call by radio signals to its own address, identifies the communication mode in which the incoming call was detected, and notifies of call incoming by the call incoming notification method that corresponds to the identified communication mode.
The incoming call notifying device of a multimode radio device of this invention is provided with: an antenna for transmitting and receiving radio signals of a prescribed plurality of communication modes; a plurality of receivers for converting radio signals received by the antenna to signals for each independently established communication mode and outputting the result; an incoming call notifying unit including a plurality of expressing means that distinguish and express each of the communication modes, for reporting, by means of the expressing means corresponding to the communication mode, that a call signal to the address of the multimode radio device has been received; and a control unit for controlling the operation of the plurality of receivers and incoming call notifying unit, detecting the receiver that has received a call signal, and controlling the expressing means of the incoming call notifying unit in accordance with the communication mode set in the receiver.
In addition, the control unit may also switch the operations of each of the plurality of receivers at a predetermined timing and switch the communication modes of the expressing means of the incoming call notifying units in synchronization with the timing of receiver switching; or may set the incoming call notifying unit to the mode for each communication system after the passage of a fixed time interval after switching the operations of the plurality of receivers.
The control unit can control the expressing means of the incoming call notifying unit based on the mode setting information of radio signals received by way of the antenna.
The expressing means of the incoming call notifying unit can be a speaker that outputs, for each communication system, different incoming call sounds, for example, different patterns of stops and starts, or incoming call sounds of different sound volumes.
The expressing means of the incoming call notifying unit may also be a display that displays the incoming call state by different character strings or images for each communication system.
The expressing means of the incoming call notifying unit may also be a vibrator that generates vibrations of different amplitude, of different stop-and-start patterns, or of different rpm, for each communication system.
When a call addressed to the multimode radio device is detected, the present invention constructed as described hereinabove outputs particular incoming call information for the communication system in the call occurred, and a user therefore can recognize which radio system produced the a call at the time of call incoming.
Accordingly, when the radio device is a mobile communication system, the user can know which mobile communication system service area his unit is in, and therefore can judge whether movement is subsequently possible or not or, if currently in motion, whether or not movement should stop at that point.
Finally, the switching of incoming call information for each communication system can be made synchronous with switching of the operation of receivers or can be executed based on received radio signals. However, switching of incoming call information after the passage of a fixed time interval following switching of the operation of the receiver allows the operation of the receiver to stabilize and has the merit of preventing malfunction of the receivers and notifying units.
The above and other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description referring to the accompanying drawings, which illustrate examples of preferred embodiments of the present invention.